Duty Session 177: The Tides of Summer

    Ainkli Bluetongue is here at the beach when the war horn sounds. She's just enjoying some 'me time', staring out at the sunlit water as it laps at the shore line, her expression vacant and her mind elsewhere. The sound of impending battle snaps her to the current moment, but she reacts by standing smoothly, and pulling her shield and staff out of her inventory. She was, after all, here on a kind of 'guard duty,' knowing that others would probably get their festive summertime fun interrupted at some point.

    This place is based on a game, after all. Sometimes these events are predictable.

    She tromps through the sand to find out where the problem is, precisely, her tail dragging through the sand. "Blh... I hope it isn't a giant jellyfish. Maybe it'll be a crab."

Vertina's tomboy inclinations wouldn't agree with a full out bikini so instead she was just wearing a sporty halter top and trunks. She was trying to teach some others how to play proper beach volleyball when the monster alert goes out. "Guess this is going to have to wait." The Salamander tosses the ball to someone else and darts off to find where anyone else is gathering for the abrupt event.

"It's probably a shark," Prophylaxis says from nearby, where he has apparently set up an EMERGENCY MEDICAL PAVILLION of some kind, servicing the local beachgoers in all their possible drowning-or-aquatic-predator-based ailments, "Or maybe some kind of super jellyfish."

In either case, this is definitely something that he wants to get in on. You don't end up treating giant shark attack wounds very often, and the first-hand experience will be invaluable!

The Doctor of Tolbana packs away a kit full of supplies and unslings his staff from where it's been resting against a nearby coconut palm. "Let's go," he says, hurrying after Ainkli and the others. "We should probably hurry if we want to catch the culprit before it heads back out to sea."

Miho had been out enjoying the party she'd been taking in a person who'd been running a BBQ pit and enjoying herself. She's also clad in a dark blue bikini she picked up from somewhere. She'd been enjoying herself but when the warning call comes out? She'll tell the people at the pit to get going while she goes to check out just what is going on. She'll have her Katana suddenly at her hip as the smith currently in beach girl mode goes to see just what the heck is going on.

"The food's going to have to wait."

Schneider is here in a pair of Jams, surfing on a ... basically homemade surfboard. Or, trying to surf. He's learning to surf, at least, though he hasn't learned yet, and he's teaching himself by trial and error. When the alarm goes out, he angles his board towards the beach misses a couple waves, sighs, hops down and paddles in to the shore to join the other players, recognizing a situation that Landers are going to flee from, that players must react to.

A shark? He looks left, looks right, checks behind him, sees nothing. But none-the-less he paddles faster and is soon ashore. He leaves his 'board' beached and goes to gather up with the others, asking, "What's going on?"

    The necromancer was wandering near by, perusing the temporary setup shops and judging by the fact he is still wearing the long winter robes, more then likely hunting for an outfit more fitting for the weather. The alarm goes off though and Setsuna's attention is drawn from his arduous task to go face whatever may be disturbing the good beach going people. Rushing from the shops to the life guard tower he looks at the others and nods a greeting of acknowledgement. " So which pop culture reference are we facing today? " It was a beach event, they couldn't possibly get away from them all.

    Aaand the whole beach breaks into a panic, and it becomes a bit of a stampede. Ainkli decides to take advantage of the powerful lungs of her Were Fang form and ... begins singing a marching tune to get people distracted from the whole deal. It sounds very cheerful and happy, some kind of cheesy 'no need to panic, just move along this way~' kind of thing. She supplements it with a few waves of her staff to direct people, and directs some of the sound to those, perhaps, confused about what is happening.

    Of course, she can't get everyone, so there's still plenty of people either refusing to leave or confused about what's happening that the others need to help, as well as those perhaps not paying attention to where they're going as they flee.

They need to negotiate with people to get them off the beach that's about to likely become an arena? Fine with Vertina. Of course, her concept of 'negotiation' is to just grab whoever is being stubborn and use her physical strength to win over the argument and drag them out of potential harm's way.

Schneider acks as the alarm turns into a stampede, and he's trying to keep people from being trampled. "Up and forward to starboard," he shouts, "down and aft to port!" Those were where you went in a crisis, he'd read on a website when doing some research for a paper in school. He's not sure what exactly it means, but either the Landers do, or a six-four exploder wizard shouting at them calms them a bit and they start to behave more reasonably.

There is the panic Miho will try to sing to calm down some of the children to help get them to move. However, she's not used to singing with the ability to breathe fire and she slips up. Rather than a song there's a spurt of fire out of her mouth, that only scares the kids worse and she just kinda melts as she moves to just move the kids before it's too late.

She may have to work on dealing with that. She will start trying to work with the others who are responding to this sudden occurance however. At least she's not alone...

Do you know what being subject to crippling unnatural mental influence that paints every interaction as a potential medical operation? It /completely/ tanks your bedside manner, is what it does. Prophylaxis has absolutely no patience for these people running screaming from the shoreline, except for maybe the ones who get trampled (and summarily bandaged up without a word).

They have a shark to deal with. People who can't figure out single-file, orderly evacuation procedures are not something Prophylaxis presently has the patience to deal with-- not when there's someone potentially bleeding out down the way. In a way, the shark is not the only one smelling blood in the water...!

    Setsuna looks at the people as they begin to stampede in all directions and Setsuna casts a small air spell to amplify his voice, " Greetings people of the beach. If you would all form an orderly line you will be able to get out of here faster. We all want you to get out of here faster and in a safe manner. " His eyes cast over to the doctor and well at least believes the sentiment is true across the board. " So again if you exit in an orderly manner no one will get hurt. If you keep acting like a herd of stampeding grunties, I make no promises. " The necromancer turns back to the others, not making a comment on whether he just threatened a whole beach or not.

    There's a bit of a struggle, but the Landers don't have too much issue starting to clear out. No one really gets caught up in the kerfuffle when the octopi start sliming their way onto the shore, and the Miniature Enemy Crabs start filtering onto the sand. It appears they're going to try and snip some easy meals from the locals, so it's up to the adventurers to prevent that from happening by giving the Landers more time to escape!

    Ainkli does her best by just... yelling at the monsters as they try to approach, hoping that looking like a dire beast would help deter the aquatic threats to some degree. Or draw aggro, perhaps.

Schneider acks at the sight of the hordes of monsters rushing up onto the beach going after the Landers. He could fireball a few at a time, but this is a swarm, it wouldn't stop the horde. So, he tries a bit of swarm control magic. Well, if he had swarm control magic, he would use it. He does fireball a couple, just because it could help, but it doesn't really, the rest swarming past him, ignoring him. Except for the few climbing over him. "What? Hey, getoff!" More fire.

    Seeing the giant crab people Setsuna begins to contemplate what it is he needs to remember about crab people, he had been slacking on his water monsters though. Then it suddenly hits him, " Fish, they are attracted to the smell of fish!" He grabs someones fish that was left smoking over a fire and literally throws it into the face of one of the crab people, maybe it was the delicous smell of smoked fish. Maybe it was that some idiot just threw hot fish at them, but either way Setsuna had persuaded the monsters to ignore the fleeing landers.

Vertina returns to the beachfront just in time to see the hordes of sea creatures marching onto the shore. Well, she knows what to do now. Much like her 'negotiation' her 'handle monsters' takes a direct, hands-on approach. Literally, as she just picks up random sea monsters and YEET them back into the water while scolding them for interrupting the party.

Fortunately, nobody is trampled to death! Hooray! Unfortunately, it turns out that one of the reasons for their desperate panic is a little closer than Prophylaxis had expected. The doctor makes a thoughtful noise as the crab-monsters scuttle their way out of the surf. "Crabs...? Could it really be that this is all because of a giant crab? No, that'd be silly, wouldn't it?"

His brows furrow as he weaves together a spell. It's a simple enchantment, darkening the space through which the Landers are making their escape. With any luck, it'll keep the crabs from pursuing and enable the rest of his party to deal with them at their leisure.

So things just keep getting crazy for Miho, she'll end up trying to get the monsters to getaway. It ends with some of the clawed ones grabbing her tail she cries out and soon has a tentale thing on her head and she is flailing around crying out.

"Get it off me! Get it off me!"

At the very least as she attracts more monsters it might give other people an opening. She is not having a good day right now.

    A mixture of violence and YEETing the crabs has a good effect. Yelling at them makes them part like the Red Sea, pretty much. They manage to take care of a good chunk of the monsters, enough that Landers aren't caught up in the chaos, when some kind of giant sea monster makes itself known... and a wash of water starts approaching the shore all at once. "Guys... GUYS THERE's A LOT OF WATER COMING!!" Ainkli is already sprinting toward the water, shield raised, prepared to defend against this ability with a quick defensive <<Shield>> ability, interposing herself as a kind of barrier with a wedge shape to disperse the force of the water away from any people.

She squints her eyes shut and prepares to get knocked over...! Briefly gawking at Miho's... predicament over there before she remembers what she's doing.

Vertina eventually yanks one of the creatures off the other Salamander and drop kicks it back into the ocean. She holds a hand up like a visor to shield her eyes from the sun as she watches it splash out in the water... And seems the jagged back rising out of the water. "Oh shit, we might have a Gojira moment coming!"

Fortunately no the Leviathan does not come to the shore. But the wave it makes most certainly does. With a quick utterance Vertina stomps a foot in the ground and makes and outward, upward thrust with her arms to geokinetically heave several large rocks up from beneath the sand and form a natural wave break to help disperse the water in other directions.

Schneider finally manages to get the crawly monsters under control, or anyhow, the party does. He's mostly too little and too late to contribute substantially. "That'd got them," he says triumphantly as they're mostly swept back into the sea, or else dispatched. If he can't contribute, he can at least celebrate.

He acks at the wave coming for the beach. "That's waaaay too much to surf," he laments as it grows and grows. Hands extended, he summons his basic magic shield, using it to bulwark the beach against the giant wave. If he can break the wave, or at least keep it from swamping the beach and dragging everyone out to sea when the water washes out, that'd be good.

Miho sees what's offshore, she thinks about the client she made a leg for, she feels pure terror. If something that cons black to anyone she knows? Was nearly killed by one of these things? The people of Yamato are NOT PREPARED for this. They are so not prepared for this, and she knows it. Yet they can't run right now there are still people not clear of the beach. She will hear by the roar of water coming she gets an idea, it's an idea that shouldn't work on earth. Here? Oh, kami it might just /work/.

she'll draw her Katana and honestly, she's looking happier right now she makes ready and she cues up several abilities.

"THERE IS NOTHING MY SWORD CAN NOT CUT! REPELLING FIELD!"

Miho just freaking goes to cleave part of the wave in two, but she hasn't quite thought about the aftermath of doing this!

    Setsuna watches the giant Levitathan starting to rise up before a large wall of water covers it from view as he quickly raises up a large slanted wall of rock infront of him as he feels the water rush around him . " This is not what I wanted to deal with at the beach!" He shouts as he does his best to wait out the wave.

Oh no! There's a lot of water coming! That would be... Hm. Does this count as a tidal wave? It sure as heck seems to be getting as much attention as one. In the real world, they'd all be in a heck of a lot of trouble right about now. Being next to the shoreline right as a big wave hits is basically death for anyone, no matter how amazing of a swimmer you might think you are.

But they're not in the real world right now. Right now, they can fight the tidal wave.

Prophylaxis takes a steady stance, facing the onrushing wave. His staff raised high, he channels his magic into the weapon's narrow base. "No," he declares, plunging his magical focus deep into the sand. The wave rushes closer, closer, closer still. The ground rumbles with its approach... And something else.

A cascade of mighty, basalt pillars rocket out of the earth. They're arranged in a reversed step-like pattern, and interlock to form a structure like the walls of a mighty dam. Prophylaxis struggles and strains against the forces pushing back into his makeshift barricade-- but the bulwark holds. Surf crashes against his ankles as it pours in from the flanks, but that's all that it manages to do.

    Ainkli switches methods before the waves hit, seeing the others use magic. With them blocking the direct hit of the water, she turns to plant her staff into the sand and projects a field of blue light... and it shines with an incredible glow, ice shields going up to interrupt the waves and prevent them from slamming into the shore with any greater strength, dispersing their motion and redirecting it to either side. Overall, the party makes a great dent in the tsunami, and actually seems to prevent any noticeable damage as a whole, even those who were having a troublesome time a moment ago.

    "Blh... Fish men." She makes a face, her big blue tongue sticking out for a moment in disgust at what comes next. A horde of glistening, gurgling, angry piscene horrors amble their way out of the ocean with murder on their minds and spears in their hands.
    Ainkli waves her staff about in a circle above her head, preparing to cast another spell... but which one? With all the fish men coming, she finds herself backpedaling some, so that she doesn't end up mobbed by their weapons. "Who pissed off Poseidon?" she mutters as she tries to get better range and angle for a good hit.

    "Do they have a boss...?" she wonders, squinting at the ocean, because the tidal wave had to come from somewhere.

With the wave dispersed harmlessly, or mostly harmlessly, Schneider looks around to see if we're done. That was pretty bad. He's in a bathing suit, so it doesn't matter that he's been splashed and soaked by the seawater, but with the onslaught of fishmen attackers, he begins to wish for steel skivvies. On the other hand, there's a sure-fire solution for this sort of thing.

Operational word: FIRE. He chants menacingly, "Brain, Brain dead. Obey your blood oath, come forth from the land of Avalon. Fire of Gehenna, become a fiery blast and burn everything around us! EXODUS!" That's a fireball, and it launches out, engulfing a crowd of fishmonsters and flash-broiling them into filets. Now if he only had a tartar sauce spell, it'd be perfect.

Fish men, huh?

Did you know that fish need air to breathe? It's true. By moving water across their gills, fish exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen, 'breathing' by taking advantage of their own forward motion, tide or currents. Even fish that tentatively are capable of 'walking' across land need to keep their gills moist in order for them to breathe properly.

What happens, then, if a magus who is incredibly curious if certain medical and anatomical paradigms (such as mucous production and utility) still hold true in the world he's found himself in happens to encounter a swarm of fishmen hell-bent on murdering him?

Simple. It means he has probable cause.

"I see," Prophylaxis says, his voice taking on a distinctly... ominous tone. Again he raises his staff, but this time he's not calling on the earth. No, he calls on a great wind instead. At first, it doesn't seem to do anything at all... But the gale he conjures is very particular. He's drawing it from overland and heating it dramatically as it arrives, creating a flood of hot, dry, fast-moving air that he's using to displace the atmosphere around the fishmen.

It's fully oxygenated, that's not the problem. No, the problem is that it's going to dry out their gills /very/ quickly.

In other words, the Doctor of Tolbana is using magic to asphyxiate a small army of fishmen to death.

...For self-defense! But also for science.

    Setsuna frowns at the fish people and groans as he gets up from the wet sand, " Go to the beach they say. It will be fun they say. " His eyes glow with magical energy as several balls of magic appear around him and he sets his targets. The orbs begin to spin into sharp spear shaped objects before launching off towards the fishman. Spearing the fish people Setsuna looks over at Ankli and answers the question, " I think he got mad it was named the neptune club instead of the poseidon club."

Vertina lets her earthbending formation collapses once the waters are receding again, only to come face to face with ugly fishmen emerging from the water. This actually makes her smile. "Finally! The real fun can start!" With a war cry that could rival her dragon ancestors the Salamander charges the briny fiends, her fists and feet igniting in their own brutal blaze. "Who's ready for the fish fry?!"

The aquatic monsters don't really know what hit them. With each fiery blow Vertina lands the moisture that keeps their bodies functioning on dry land is forcefully evaporated from their bodies. The results are being flash cooked by the steam erupting from their own bodies as they are dried up, until they die and pixilated.

things have been going well for so long and she calls out to Ainkli.

"Zeus most likely."

She then pauses the stares at the horrors coming out of the water. She's seen things like this before, in a manga once. It didn't end well. There is only one response from the smol smith. Fire and lots of it she's breathing fire, her Katana is superheated as she just dives into the monster ranks screaming various war cries and cursing out whoever wrote that manga she read some time before arriving in this world.

    For her effort, Ainkli gets stabbed in the chest with a thrown trident, failing to do a whole lot in that particular juncture of the fight. But there's more people here, so the fish men have quite the retaliation to deal with. Those Prophylaxis hit fall to the floor, grasping at their gills, and then shatter into digital shards, and the others hit more directly give out gurgling cries reminiscent of an iconic creature from a more Western MMO... The oceanic forces are held at bay, until another blast of water arrives and... oh look, a giant ****ing octopus.

    "Dang! I wanted to fight a giant crab!" Ainkli shouts, and then runs to the forefront of combat, and holds up her shield, prepared to fight the thing before her, even as it prepares to bubble or grapple anyone unwary enough to get in its crosshairs.

    "That Leviathan out there needs to BUZZ OFF!" she bellows, getting upset with how much ocean trash is getting pushed onto the beach.

    "Rise up my minions, it is time." Out of the sand the skeleton minions of Setsuna would arise as they all look like skeleton pirates ready to go face the giant Octopus with a smug look on Setsuna's face he points them in the direction. " Yo ho me 'earties. Go get me the takoyaki." The necromancer could get behind the pirate aspect of this, and sends his minions in to do battle. They charge in , and get swept aside by a single tentacle, their skeleton feet still standing in the sand where the minions once stood.

Prophylaxis watches the suffocating fishmen with the same kind of clinical coldness that one might expect from someone dissecting a frog. "Good to know," is all he says-- as an octopus of all things squirms its way onto shore. This time, a slim pang of guilt ricochets through his heart. The octopus is a tremendously intelligent creature. One as big as this would be even moreso. But it's also trying to kill them all. Prophylaxis' expression hardens, his staff whirling through the air. If suffocating the fishmen worked fine, then doing so to this octopus will be equally effective. He just needs the right spell.

Ordinarily, Aero is a defensive measure, used for buffeting away weaker attacks for prolonged periods. Prophylaxis is using it... creatively. He bids the winds around the octopus to swirl and rage, blasting hot air across its gills even as it's lifted out of the sea. The winds buffet it this way and that, its bubble attacks sent hurtling in random and largely ineffectual directions. His spell immobilizing and slowly choking the creature to death, Prophylaxis can only look towards the others to finish the unfortunate creature off.

...But hey, at least octopi are tasty. Maybe they'll all get to eat well after this?

Vertina is already on an adrenaline rush so the rising of something big with tentacles onto the beach doesn't deter her much. Other than be glad she's not wearing something more skimpy that the fiend might try to make a bad pervert situation out of.

"Hey, we were at this beach first tako breath. Step off!" Vertina douses her flames, so she can take advantage of her fist weapons directly, and tear the threatening tentacles apart with the vicious claw-like blades the pair of cestus sport.

Schneider finishes broiling the fishmen attackers with fireballs, sighs as a giant octopus shows up. Another nice place to have a fireball, but .... "DAMEDO! Magic shield!" he shouts, it's one of the spells he doesn't use too often, but it's useful here, warding off the tentacles which would otherwise ... well, it wouldn't be nice, would it?

Schneider's magic shield is sufficient, though, for stymying the tencacles, protectubg himself and the other party members from their unwanted attentions. He'll hold the shield up through most of the fight, straining to keep it going as the rest of the party delivers the smackdown on the octopus.
He eyes Proph, but can't thinnk of any Doc Ock jokes on the spur of the moment, and sighs with disappointment. It could have been funny, but jokes that sit too long ... there's a window, and if you're too slow, they're no good.

Miho is making ready to fight this creature and she'll charge in with her Katana in hand. Her tail is swishing a she goes it goes badly she gets grabbed by a tentacle she gets crushed by it. She flails and tries to fight back it's not fun her HP is dropping from this. Finally thanks to attacks from the rest of the party the thing will end up tossing Miho into the water with a splash and a crash she vanishes under the surface. Someone may need to go fish her out of the water. She's so going to enjoy eating this thing....

    The octopus doesn't have a great time. It runs face-first into a bunch of ready, violent adventurers who are more than ready for it. The sound of "ANCHOR HOWL!!!" draws the octopus to try and hit Ainkli to no avail, and the rest of the party does their thing. Wind attacks, straight-up socking it in the gob, and a bit of skillful defensive work render it to meaty chunks that will soon be gathered up by the locals to make into a fine meal.

    Ainkli trudges out into the water, though, and grabs Miho to drag her back to shore, pulling her along by the arm. It appears she's ... okay at swimming, though not really an expert.

    Once the coast is clear, quite literally, Ainkli pulls out a Mithral Cookpot and gets to work cooking up some takoyaki right there on the spot, because... why not? The Landers seem to be following her directions on what they need for a good meal in this case, when they aren't providing their own spin on it.

Water is one element that Vertina isn't all that great with, but fortunately Ainkli goes to haul in the smolsmith before she has to worry about it. Once she's back on the sand Vertina gives the shorter Salamander a pat on the shoulder. "Well at least water is the only thing you got soaked in."

    Setsuna steps back as the Octopus falls and lets out a sigh of relief as his shoulders drop and it is obvious he is a bit tired. He is wet, covered in sand and is reminded of the downside of the beach, however there was the chance of takoyaki so he starts to help in the making and would obviously take some warm takoyaki as payment for his efforts here today. Clothes shopping would have to wait for another day.

In the end, regardless of how intelligent the creature was, the monster octopus was still just that. A monster octopus. Prophylaxis sighs as the creature disintegrates into so many slabs of meat. "Well! That could have been much worse. Well done, everyone. I think we all learned something today."

Or rather, he learned something. Very useful things.

Also, that octopus monsters drop octopus meat. And that means takoyaki!!

Miho is a bit fazed out in the water thankfully she's not pulled in by the tail. The arms work much better and once she's ashore she's looking embraced but it could be worse. "Thank you Ainkli...I owe you one if you need some help forcing something let me know."

She notes before getting up and looking at the cookpot, yes the beast deserved to end up as dinner. Good, that seems to sate any lingering anger Miho has.

"We're lucky the thing that spawned those things didn't come for a closer look of the shore. It would wipe us all if it did."